


(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Butterfly Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Chat Noir Emilie Agreste, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Ladybug Adrien Agreste | Mister Bug, Ladybug Gabriel Agreste, POV Outsider, Podfic Welcome, Resurrected Emilie Agreste
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22542292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Gabriel wished for his wife alive again.That isexactlywhat he got.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 27
Kudos: 598





	(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _be careful what you wish for_. Three-sentence rule? Surely you joke…

Émilie comes to lightheaded in a garden—in _her_ garden, she knows those roses, those white butterflies, if not the tacky gray statue in what was her reading nook.

" _Chaton_!" shrieks a girl's voice. "CHATON!"

"Émilie!" exclaims a man, familiar-sounding, and when Émilie turns, the world spins faster and pitches her into his arms: "Nooroo, Tikki, divide! Nooroo, Plagg, divide!" the masked man says, his formal suit going from gold-edged violet to silver-accented purple, and two kwamis—the Ladybug and the Black Cat, surely!—hover by his shoulders in stony silence.

She straightens and looks around. The rosevines are ridiculous—impossibly ridiculous, she realizes, _magically_ ridiculous: there's three clusters of oversized vine, one with an almost-human face and yellow blossoms in her thorny hair, and two have _people_ in them! A pale black-haired girl bleeding from at least three head wounds, a too-pale golden-haired boy lolling in a way that _must_ be driving those lethal thorns deeper, both with faces so beaten their own mothers might not know them—

"Émilie, my love," says the masked man, brow crinkling in a parody of Gabriel's loving concern—

" _Gabriel_?"

He smiles at her. "Please don't stress yourself."

Émilie isn't sure she is _able_ to stress herself right now. She's breathing easier than she has in years—physically, anyway: and where is Duusu's brooch? "You're a Miraculous wielder," she says. Thoughts are moving too slowly. But the Butterfly Miraculous is there at his collar. "That's a monster."

Gabriel's lips flatten. "Don't concern yourself, Émilie."

"Miraculous wielders fight monsters," she says.

" 'Bout that," rasps the boy.

"That's an innocent child!" yells the bleeding girl. "She's only a monster because _he_ made her one!"

"Émilie," snaps Gabriel. Something tugs at her mind— _a wife obeys her husband_ — "Flower power—"

" _They're Adrien's age!_ "

Gabriel flinches.

They're not Adrien's age—they're two or three years older, she thinks, than Adrien was when she saw him two hours ago—but what is _wrong_ with the man? Even if these two were bent on raping and murdering her son—

Her husband's cane lies a meter away.

Émilie knees him in the groin and shoves him off and snatches up the cane.

" _Get the ring!_ " shouts the bleeding girl.

The vine-girl whips thorns at Émilie—

A glowing butterfly shape appears before both Gabriel's face and the vine-girl's: "Do not harm her!" roars Gabriel; the vine-girl, hissing, stills—

Émilie lunges and yanks the wide gold band off his hand.

"Put it on!" yells the bleeding girl. Émilie does: it turns to delicate twined white gold.

"Plagg," croaks the boy. "Eat."

Émilie looks up at the two kwamis. The Ladybug is still stone-faced; the Black Cat is glancing worriedly between Émilie and the boy. "You heard him," she tells them both.

The Black Cat grins at her and zooms to caress the boy's bruised cheek before vanishing into the house.

"Émilie?" Gabriel sounds confused more than pained.

"They're Adrien's age," Émilie repeats. The boy could almost _be_ Adrien, with a few more years to grow tall and muscular. "What are you _doing_?"

"Saving you, of course." Gabriel says it as though it should be obvious.

She stares at him. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Something thumps lightly to the grass: a bakery box, Émilie thinks, as the Black Cat kwami loops back to her.

"Say 'Plagg, claws out!' " calls the bleeding girl.

"Don't!" shouts her husband.

 _A wife obeys—_

Émilie tells herself the boy is Adrien. "Plagg, claws out!"

It's nothing like transforming with Duusu: _this_ power is gale and flood and unsettling diamond clarity. Émilie glances over herself: halter-neck blouse over slim-cut slacks, with flats and claw-tipped evening gloves, all in midnight black, with a silvery baton hanging from a chain at her waist. She doesn't need it with Gabriel's cane in hand. "How do I get you two out of there?" she asks the boy.

"Her first," he rasps. She can hear him wheezing; there's far too much blood dripping down the vines—

" _Chaton_ , I _hate_ you!" shrieks the bleeding girl. "Madame, it's Cataclysm, then touch the ring to these vines—don't hurt the akuma, none of this is her fault—"

Émilie holds the cane left-handed, ready to hit her husband with it if he moves. The girl cannot have lost as much blood as the boy, she thinks, but if there are thorns in her flesh Émilie can't see, those wounds are about to start bleeding faster. "Cataclysm," she repeats.

Gabriel shouts "STOP!"

Cool black power bubbles around her hand.

The vines holding the bleeding girl crumble to ash. One jacket sleeve burns away, bubbling her arm pink.

She snatches the baton from Émilie's waist—no, the _staff_ : Gabriel grabs it two-handed before she can slam it through his skull, yanking the girl off-balance, defending his head: purple light flares as he throws the girl against the garden wall, leaving Gabriel standing there in ordinary clothing, Nooroo hovering, and Émilie empty-handed.

"Tikki, spots on!" commands Gabriel. Pink light wraps him in a black-spotted red formal suit and a full-head black mask that the red earrings show through.

The girl, face contorted in fury, scrambles backward to the bakery box, far too gracefully for someone with at least _four_ head injuries and a severe burn and one hand closed tight around Nooroo's brooch, and holds up a pink macaron. "He won't hurt you again, Nooroo!" she shouts. "What are the words?"

"Wings rise!" Émilie tells her.

Nooroo, swooping down to eat the macaron, nods. "Thank you, Ladybug."

The girl—Ladybug—pins the Butterfly Miraculous to her blood-stained shirt and waits just long enough for Nooroo to swallow before calling out "Nooroo, wings rise!"

The Butterfly power flows over her into a skintight purple bodysuit with a wide white ribbon sash tied like wings at her waist, and tidies her loose hair into two pigtails tied with purple ribbon. Ladybug eyes her cane, holds its shaft, and tugs at the dome on top: it separates sword-blade from sheath.

With one bound Ladybug vaults over Émilie and Gabriel's heads, landing between the vines still gripping—surely he doesn't go by 'Chaton'?—and the vine-girl, who seems equally afraid to leave and to stay. Chaton's still alive—though either Émilie is more relieved to see his tiny half-smile than Ladybug is or she's hiding her reaction—and Ladybug focuses on the vine-girl. "How does this work," she mutters to herself, "how does—ah!"

A purple butterfly flaps out of something hidden in the vine-girl's flower crown. Then it's a _white_ butterfly, and the vine-girl is nothing but a small black child with dark braided hair and grass-stained tee and jeans, staring at them all and bursting into tears.

"Émilie!" snarls Gabriel, looking up from the red yo-yo he's regarding in confusion. _A wife obeys her husband_ — "Émilie, I need you!"

Émilie plants herself between her husband and the children.

"Madame, catch!" Ladybug says behind her: just enough warning Émilie catches the half staff Ladybug throws her. "Find Alya, little butterfly," Ladybug says, though what that means Émilie doesn't know, and "Sweetling, I'm sorry," she tells the little girl. "Chat Noir and I will get you home safe, I _promise_ —and you _know_ Ladybug always keeps her promises."

" _Fuck you_ , you—" Gabriel begins.

"Finish that sentence," Émilie says pleasantly, because things possibly not appropriate to say to one's lawfully wedded wife are vastly inappropriate to say to a girl of perhaps fifteen and utterly appalling to say in the hearing of a girl of perhaps five, "and I will feed you your balls."

Gabriel blinks.

"Suzette, right?" Ladybug asks the little girl, who makes a tiny agreeing sound. "I need you to do something important for me, okay? Chat Noir's kinda scared right now, and _really_ stuck, and I need to protect you both—could you hold his hand for me, so he's not as scared?"

"Did—" The girl swallows a sob. "Did _I_ hurt him?"

Chat Noir makes a disagreeing sound. Émilie glances back enough to see him twitch his bloody right hand, and Suzette take the sheath to Ladybug's sword cane and dart over to Chat Noir to hold his hand with all her tiny might.

"Alya, I'm sorry," Ladybug says, her purple-masked face outlined with a glowing butterfly. "Do you remember the day after we met? You knew I was scared—you said don't be—you said you believed in me."

"Lucky Charm!" Gabriel shouts, tossing his yo-yo into the air. A red-and-black anvil crashes down: Gabriel leaps backward to not get squashed. Chat Noir wheezes.

"You said you believe in me," Ladybug repeats. Émilie can't see anymore, the angle is wrong to keep Gabriel in sight, but it sounds like Ladybug's crying. "That's why, Alya, you and him—that's why everything. Thought he was just another blond bully," she mutters, sounding bitter and a bit wry. "Never been that wrong before."

Gabriel kicks the anvil and squawks. Émilie's heart is racing too badly to laugh.

"Lady Wifi," says Ladybug.

White light flares behind Émil—

—ie. A pink-glowing pause button holds Gabriel frozen in an impossibly-balanced pose; a similar button with a video camera icon hangs above them; Ladybug's sword lies discarded on the grass; a brown girl, larger than Ladybug and wearing skintight white-striped black, is resting her phoneless hand on Suzette's shoulder. "It's not your fault, Suzette," she says. "It's Hawkmoth's."

Émilie eases her stance. She should—she should do something. She's a Miraculous wielder, even if this isn't a Miraculous she knows. She's supposed to fight monsters.

Ladybug plucks the red earrings from Gabriel's ears.

" _Gabriel Agreste_?" exclaims the girl in black. "Oh no. Adrien's gonna be _devastated_."

" 'Bout that," whispers Chat Noir.

"Lady Wifi, think you can upload the vines anywhere but here?" asks Ladybug, tucking the bakery box in the elbow that also has the other half of Émilie's staff. "Not _quite_ yet."

He's going to die, Émilie thinks. There are _reasons_ they tell people doing first aid for stab victims to leave the blade in the wound.

Lady Wifi releases Suzette and puts one gloved hand carefully on one of the vines. Ladybug fastens each earring to Chat Noir's ears, sparking the Ladybug kwami back into being; she hands the kwami a macaron, waits a beat for the kwami to swallow, and nods. Lady Wifi and the vines vanish in pixelated light.

"Tikki, spots on!" wheezes Chat Noir, collapsing red-armored into Ladybug's arms, taking them both to the ground. She takes the yo-yo from his hip and puts it in his hand: "Lucky charm!" and something small and red falls into his lap.

"…A ring pop?" Ladybug says, audibly skeptical. "Chat Noir, is that a pun?" He puckers his lips, as though to kiss Ladybug; she snorts. "Ask again when you're not _actively dying_."

Chat Noir rolls his eyes. "Miraculous Ladybug," he says: the last two syllables are inaudible, but Émilie can guess.

Pink-sparkling ladybugs flood out of the ring pop.

"Wow," whispers Suzette.

Chat Noir rolls smoothly to his feet as though he was never injured at all, then drops to one knee beside Suzette. "Thank you for helping me be brave," he tells her solemnly.

"I was really scared," confesses Suzette, as Ladybug turns toward Émilie.

"That's okay." Chat Noir smiles at Suzette. "Brave doesn't mean not scared. If it did," he adds as white light flares from Ladybug's half of the staff, "I'd have to tell the Ladyblogger half her articles are lies."

"I resent that," says Lady Wifi.

Émilie is beginning to get the impression that she has missed rather a lot.

Chat Noir looks up at Lady Wifi, and at the four other young people with her. "Hey, I did not say you _are_ lying. Though on that note, we need to discuss why you think _Lila_ is more trustworthy than _Marinette_."

"Leave it be, Chaton," Ladybug says, while the short girl in pink and tall girl in black and purple trade looks of horror and the large boy in black covers his face with his hands. "Lady Wifi, can you drop Suzette at the bakery? They can call her parents."

"Absolutely."

"One moment." Chat Noir turns back to Suzette. "I'd like a hug, if you want to."

Suzette throws her arms around him and squeezes, then lets go and tells Lady Wifi, "I don't want to be digititized."

"How about jumping over the wall?" Lady Wifi asks, hoisting Suzette to her hip.

"Okay."

"Ladybug?" asks the tall teal-haired young man, his attention fixed on the paused Gabriel. "Do you know where Adrien is?"

"I'm more worried about Nathalie Sancoeur," Chat Noir says, getting slowly to his feet.

"—What does Nathalie have to do with this?" asks Émilie blankly.

"Put it this way," Ladybug says, "I think if Luka and Juleka go look inside—" Teal and Purple glance at each other. "—they're going to find that Hawkmoth murdered Nathalie Sancoeur—alias Mayura, I expect—" Purple winces. "—in order to, uh." Ladybug bites her lip.

"Adrien's mother died years ago," Chat Noir says flatly; Émilie stares at him. "Adrien's father, rather than mourn and move on like _sane_ people, decided to find magic to fix that. I don't know if he knew it would kill Nathalie." White light flares from Pink's pocket; Lady Wifi lands next to her. "I don't know," Chat Noir continues, "if he knew _why_ it would kill Nathalie, or how easily it could have killed Adrien."

"—I ought to kill him myself!" exclaims Émilie.

"Please don't," Ladybug says. "Madame, the ring, please."

Émilie yanks the Cat Miraculous from her finger, breathing more easily once it's in Ladybug's hand.

"Luka, Juleka, check the house, please," Ladybug says. "Ivan, stay with Adrien's mother. Rose, call 112."

Teal and Purple head inside. Pink, who must be Rose (ha), gets out her phone and dials; Lady Wifi busies herself with her own phone. Ladybug and Chat Noir vanish around the corner.

Émilie slides to the grass.

The boy in black sits down beside her. "I'm Ivan," he offers. "Adrien's in my class. And our band—keyboardist, when he makes practices." Ivan glares at the paused Gabriel. "He wasn't at practice yet when Alya got us, but that just means either his bodyguard caught him before he got to the _Liberty_ or he'll get there and Juleka's mom will tell him where we went. Whatever happened here, he missed it."

"Speak for yourself," grumbles Chat Noir, returning to Émilie's garden wearing the black leather, complete with ears, belt tail, and golden collar bell, that must have given him his name; Ladybug's purple bodysuit is now black-spotted fuchsia, the ribbon sash looking like black wings. "I do _not_ want to know how this would have gone down if Hawkmoth thought Adrien saw any of it."

"Riposte," Ladybug says, wrapping both arms around Chat Noir's waist. "Puppeteer at the Grévin. Gorizilla."

Chat Noir winces. "Good point."

"I'm sorry?" asks Émilie.

"Don't—"

"Times Hawkmoth tried to kill Adrien," Chat Noir says.

"—tell her," finishes Ladybug, shoulders slumping. Chat Noir buries his face in her hair.

Émilie's vision grays out for a while.

* * *

Whatever bizarreness Paris has grown accustomed to over the—good god—nearly two years since Émilie's husband announced his magical terrorism, Émilie appearing in perfect health when the last anyone knew she was mere meters from death's door (and especially when the collective suspicion seems to have been she found somewhere to die where her son wouldn't find her body, and then no one else found her either) is still an oddity. Alya—Lady Wifi when Hawkmoth's akuma or Butterfly-Ladybug's champion—stays with Émilie, "because you don't have Adrien's phone number," she said, "and I don't know if he'll want to see you."

Since the whole city seems to know who her husband was and who Émilie and Adrien were to him, Émilie doubts she'll be able to blame Adrien for refusing to ever lay eyes on Émilie again.

When the hospital finally turns Émilie loose—by which she means, when Émilie loses patience with the whole mess—Alya offers to introduce her to some more of Adrien's friends, and to their parents, "which may be more to the point," Alya says. "We don't drink."

Émilie almost laughs.

Alya leads her to Tom & Sabine's Boulangerie Pâtisserie; Émilie wonders why the storefront is closed this early in the day, but when Alya knocks at the back way in (holding her phone to film) and Mme. Cheng lets them into the bakery, it becomes obvious.

Adrien's there beside M. Dupain and daughter, up to his elbows in flour and almost more at ease than Émilie can ever remember seeing him.

"You got so _tall_ ," Émilie breathes, and staggers under the force of his hug.

"Maman," Adrien says a long moment later, smiling through tears. He pulls far enough away to beckon the Dupain-Cheng daughter over. "This is Marinette," he says, beaming. "She's the best part of my life."

"Pleased to meet you," Marinette says, half extending a hand to shake before noticing its batter smears and tucking it behind her.

Adrien steps back, grimacing at his hands. "I got flour on your jacket. I'm sorry."

"I don't care," says Émilie, and Adrien brightens again.

Mme. Cheng—"Sabine, please, and he's Tom"—brings two stools downstairs for Émilie and Alya to sit on while Adrien works through what is apparently his first baking lesson. "I hope this won't hurt anybody's paychecks," Adrien says, slamming the dough he's kneading with what looks like undue force, at least regarding the dough. "No way did most of our people know anything. I don't think the company's surviving, though."

"Not under Gabriel's name, anyway," Marinette says.

Adrien shrugs. "You know, I'm okay with that. Give all the current employees fantastic references, rename the paperwork to, I don't know, Carmina—" Marinette goes pink. "—and box up the fixed assets till you graduate ESMOD."

"Carmina?" asks Émilie.

"Knowing Adrien," Alya says, "it's an Italian pun."

"And I will shout it from the prooftops if she lets me," Adrien says cheerily.

Marinette snickers. "So if you hear any caterwauling tonight…"

Alya eyes them. "Uh- _huh_."

"Are parents allowed to know the joke?" asks Sabine.

"Nope!" all three teens chorus. Then Adrien winces.

Marinette turns away from the buns she's shaping to hug him. (Hopefully it will be several years yet, Émilie thinks, before 'bun in the oven' is a relevant joke; Adrien may not even end up with this girl long-term, no matter what he's saying now. They _are_ only sixteen.) "All you knead is love," she says.

"And Camembert," says Adrien.

"Yes, that's what I said."

Adrien starts laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


End file.
